After months of waiting for the coronavirus pandemic to wane and for the social scene to return, Tony and Maria Prifitera are opening Sicily Coal-Fired Pizza in Middletown on Monday. The restaurant at 412 Main St., is in the 1860 building that once housed the R.W. Camp Co. department store.
Sicily is about the size of a department store, with a roomy dining room and bar, an upstairs piano bar, a second upstairs lounge with music space and a downstairs function room. The menu encompasses New Haven-style pizza, pasta, steaks, veal, chicken seafood and appetizers including a charcuterie board, octopus, eggplant fries, seasonal soups and items made with Liuzzi cheeses of New Haven.
“This is the Tony and Maria’s dream restaurant. They’ve been working toward it their whole lives,” General Manager Dan Licitra said. “We don’t want people to just eat and then go home. We want them to stay, dance maybe, listen to music, have a drink, turn coming here into a whole night out.”
The team running Sicily has lifetimes of experience with Italian cuisine. Tony Prifitera’s family owned Naples pizza in New Haven, and he owned places in Florida. He lived in Sicily as a child. “I went to school there in fifth, sixth and seventh grade,” said Prifitera, who lives in Durham. “I got to know the culture.”
Dan Licitra has worked in restaurants since he was a child, starting at age 8 washing dishes at his dad’s eatery, Espresso Pizza in Meriden. Licitra also worked at Rustic Grotto in Fairfield and Septembers in New Haven. Executive chef Joe Lucci most recently worked at Viron Rondo Osteria, the mammoth Italian restaurant in Cheshire, where he served hundreds of people each night as an executive chef.
Rounding out the team are pastry chef Rebecca Dandeneau, formerly of Artisan in West Hartford; and bar manager Hana Kin. Kin assembled a varied cocktail and wine list, and 50 taps with many local brews including City Steam and Hanging Hills of Hartford, Relic of Plainville, Armada of East Haven, Two Roads of Stratford, Bad Sons of Derby and Thimble Island of Branford. Sicily also has a house lager, and one beer tap serves up Prosecco.
Licitra said the restaurant has been “two years in the making,” with the COVID-19 health crisis stalling the opening. “We didn’t want masks, plastic dividers, limited capacity. We wanted it be full energy or not at all,” he said. “We wanted to give the big wow to people in the Middletown community.”
The 7,000 square feet of indoor space, and a patio fronting Main Street, is room for a good portion of the Middletown community. Sicily has the staff to feed a big crowd. At a time when many restaurants struggle to find staff to open to full capacity, Sicily has been able to fill about 100 positions, Licitra said.
Two of those positions are held by the Prifiteras themselves, who report to the kitchen daily. “I work. I don’t shake hands or kiss babies. I’m not that kind of an owner,” Tony Prifitera said. “I make the sauce and the meatballs and the pizza prep and the coal-fired wings. Me and my wife make all of the pasta.” Their four children will help out in the restaurant, at least for the summer.
Adding to the community feel is the stairwells, whose steps feature the names of many Middletown restaurants and businesses: Amici, Hachi, Typhoon, Mondo, Fujiya Ramen, Tavern at the Armory.
Starting June 28, Sicily is open seven days a week, 11:30 a.m. to midnight, with the bars open longer. Sicily also has a deli that sells pasta, sauces and breads. sicilycoalfiredpizza.com.
Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.
